Wednesday, June 08, 2005

My favorite bit of bureaucrateze today, in the NYT story about Philip Cooney, the non-scientist former lobbyist for the oil industry now rewriting all the Bush administration reports on global warming, comes from a White House spokesmodel: “We don’t put Phil Cooney on the record. He’s not a cleared spokesman.”

Bionic Octopus wonders what Israel would have to do to be considered in violation of the ceasefire. After she posted, the Indy opined that the ceasefire “was under continuing strain after Israel launched a missile at Hamas militants in response to a Gaza rocket attack which killed three people on Tuesday”. “Continuing strain” is British understatement for “fucked up the ass.” That sentence also contains the media’s standard characterization of Israeli violence as always being in response to Palestinian violence.

After the so-called Afghan National Army finally deployed a unit outside of Kabul, half the soldiers deserted.

Bush, interviewed on Fox: “You know, I’ve always tried to lower expectations, and I feel like if people say, well, you know, maybe, you know, I don’t think you handle the tough job, and when you do, it impresses people even more.” Are we impressed yet? Actually, only on Fox could Bush come off as less of a doofus than the interviewer, Neil Cavuto, who kept trying to get Bush to say that the Michael Jackson trial is getting too much coverage, and actually asked him whether Laura would run for president.

Um, no she isn’t.

An email from the British Tory party contained this image, carefully chosen to appeal to yoofs.